The institution that evolved into the White Oak schoolhouse got its start in 1833. That year, James H. Jones donated an abandoned cabin measuring 24×30 feet1 to house an early subscription school2. In 1856, the cabin was moved to the Squire McClintock farm, where it was weatherboarded, and plastered3.
That early structure remained on the McClintock farm after 1855, when James Jones officially granted Salem Township officials a quarter of an acre for an upgrade4. Its successor, the first White Oak school, consisted of one large room with two doors at its north side, two windows cut into the east and west walls, and a single window facing south. It also featured a large, portable blackboard on a foot-tall platform where the teacher stood. Benches were arranged around the side walls5.
A brick school was built on Jones’ property around 1876. Unfortunately, it was shuttered after the 1918-19 school term as Salem Township’s second-to-last rural schoolhouse. Only the three-room, graded schoolhouse at Cross Roads, District 10, surpassed it6.
After its closure, the schoolhouse was converted into a home. In 1992, Steve Newnam, owner of the old McClintock farm, donated a log building identified as the original White Oak school to the Delaware County Historical Alliance. The historical alliance had plans to dismantle and move the original log schoolhouse to serve as a monument to early education7, but it didn’t happen.
The whereabouts of the old logs and fixtures that comprised the first White Oak school remains a mystery. As a new board member of the modern Delaware County Historical Society, I’d love to find out what happened!
Sources Cited
1 Preserving history. (1992, September 10). The Muncie Star. p. 10.
2 Helm, T. B. (1881). Mount Pleasant Township. In History of Delaware County, Indiana: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers (pp. 268–269). book, Kingman Brothers.
3 School Days Recalled by Epic Poem. (1933, August 23). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 5.
4 Delaware County, Indiana. (1855, August 10). Deed Book 20. p. 350.
5 Tuttle, W. (1933).“Memories of White Oak School Days.” pamphlet. Scott Printing Company.
6 Delaware County Public Schools. (1918). School directory, Delaware County public schools, Delaware County, Indiana 1918-1919. Muncie, IN.
7 Alliance acquires a second historical schoolhouse. (1992, November 3). The Muncie Star. p. 5A.
